ADA Amendments Overrule Supreme Court Decisions on What Constitutes a Disability

The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008, which took effect on January 1, 2009, specifically rejects United States Supreme Court decisions that have formed the basis of disability law in recent years. The amendments disavow what Congress describes as the Supreme Court's narrow interpretation of who is disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and stipulate that the ADA should provide a "broad scope of protection." It is expected that millions of workers who were not protected prior to the passage of these amendments will now be protected under the statute and entitled to reasonable accommodations from their employers.

The recent amendments reject the Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Sutton v. United Airlines, Inc., which involved a discrimination claim by myopic twin sisters who had applied for jobs as commercial pilots but were rejected because their uncorrected eyesight was less than the minimum requirement of 20/100. The Supreme Court held that the question of whether someone is disabled—and thus protected by the ADA—must be determined with reference to all mitigating measures. For example, if a person was "substantially limited in a daily life activity" without the use of medication, but was not substantially limited when he used medication, the mitigating measure of medication would remove the impairment from the definition of disability under the ADA.

The amendments prohibit consideration of many mitigating measures when determining whether a condition is a disability. Such measures that may no longer be considered include:
(1) medication, medical supplies, equipment, low-vision devices (which do not include ordinary eyeglasses or contact lenses), prosthetics (including limbs and devices), hearing aids and cochlear implants or other implantable hearing devices, mobility devices, and oxygen therapy equipment; (2) the use of assistive technology; (3) reasonable accommodations or auxiliary aids and services; and (4) learned behavioral or adaptive neurological modifications.

The amendments also reject Sutton's holding that for an employee to establish he was "regarded as" disabled, the employee had to prove the employer regarded him as having an impairment that would qualify as an actual disability. Prior to passage of the 2008 amendments, if the employer regarded an employee as having an impairment, but did not believe the impairment substantially limited any of the employee's major life activities, the employee's claim for coverage under the ADA failed and the employer was not required to accommodate the employee.

Another key Supreme Court decision overruled by Congress was Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams, which addressed the question of how severe a condition must be in order to qualify as a protected disability. In Williams, which was decided in January 2002, the Supreme Court determined that the employee's carpal tunnel syndrome was not a disability because it was not "substantially limiting." Specifically, the court held that for an impairment to be a disability it must prevent or severely restrict an individual from "performing activities that are of central importance to most people's daily lives."

Williams was seen as a victory for employers because it made clear that the phrase "substantially limits" should be interpreted strictly, and the ADA only protected employees with severe impairments. Although the 2008 amendments reject the Williams interpretation of "substantially limits," they do not offer a definition of the term. Rather, the amendments state that it is the "expectation [of Congress] that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will revise that portion of its current regulations that defines the term ‘substantially limits' as ‘significantly restricted' to be consistent with this Act, including the amendments made by this Act." At this time, there is no indication of when the EEOC will issue these regulations.

Both Williams and Sutton provided the foundation for the dismissal of many disability discrimination and failure-to-accommodate cases. Given their rejection by Congress and the explicit language of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 saying "the question of whether an individual's impairment is a disability under the ADA should not demand extensive analysis," courts will likely be hesitant to dismiss cases on the basis of a finding that the employee has no disability. Employers should be prepared to strengthen their other defenses by having clear procedures for employees to request accommodations, training supervisors to recognize when an employee may have a disability, and revising job descriptions to clearly identify the essential functions of a job that must be performed (with or without reasonable accommodations).